Sudbury look to avoid slip-up when Bury St Edmunds visit

With basement side Bury St Edmunds visiting Friars Street on Saturday (11am), Darren Batch is confident Sudbury will not let complacency ruin a golden chance to increase their lead over the chasing pack.

The Talbots’ five-wicket victory at second-from-bottom Norwich saw them go 24 points clear of Frinton-on-Sea at the summit of the Gibbs Denley East Anglian Premier League at the halfway stage of the campaign.

But with the two sides currently in third and fourth, Swardeston and Mildenhall, set to face each other in Norfolk on Saturday, Sudbury’s club captain is backing his side to approach their derby match professionally, to avoid a costly banana skin slip-up.

ISSUES TO RECTIFY: Sudbury club captain Darren Batch (centre) is hoping he will be applauding his team-mates in the field again after concentrating on ironing out fielding errors this week

“It is a local derby and we have obviously done well over the last few years against Bury. But they have some very good players themselves, such as captain Sean Park, Murray Commins and Josh Cantrell, so they have definitely got some players who can hurt us,” said the club skipper.

“We have got to make sure we are not complacent and Tom (Huggins, first-team captain and coach) will make sure the team are well prepared and no complacency sets in.”

He added: “Mildenhall and Swardeston play each other this weekend, so someone is going to drop points there.

“We are concious we need to keep chugging out the wins because our run-in is particularly tough with Mildenhall, Swardeston and Cambridge Granta.”

That trio of teams will certainly provide a tough challenge over the last three games of the 2018 campaign as Sudbury look to follow in the footsteps of Swardeston, Cambridge, Bury St Edmunds and Vauxhall Mallards in pulling off back-to-back EAPL titles.

Batch revealed training this week was seeing a big emphasis put on ironing out the fielding deficiencies that came to light at the weekend which, on another day, could have cost them victory.

“We dropped six catches on Saturday, which is something that has crept in over the last few weeks,” he said.

“We cannot keep dropping six catches and expecting to go and win games.”

With Jonny Gallagher unavailable for the trip to Norwich, 14-year-old Alex Quin was handed his EAPL debut.

“He did well and fielded well. He did not let anyone down,” said Batch.

“It shows the way we want to go as a club. There are a few older players in the second team who have experience of the level and could come in but in order for this club to progress we need to be drip feeding young players into the first team so they can get the experience when they can.”

He added: “Alex played in the EAPL T20 a couple of weeks ago against Frinton and Bury and did well and Tom felt it was the right time to get him involved in the first team.”

Former Welsh youth international bowler Gallagher, who recently made his Suffolk debut aged 32, is set to return for Saturday’s derby along with Will Shropshire.